Hi everyone,

Like many, I was having problems with The Sims 3 crashing to desktop. More specifically, I was having that problem on my laptop PC (which has an Athlon 64 CPU, 1GB DDR RAM, an 80GB hard disk, and a 128MB ATI Radeon Mobility 9600 graphics processor).

The game, as originally installed from DVD, would play for awhile, then either crash to a black screen (it kind of looked like it was repeatedly trying to change the screen mode, over and over and over again), or crash to the desktop (with the screen resolution so badly messed up I would have to reboot). So, I switched it to windowed mode, and it would work... for a short time. But after anywhere from one to ten minutes in "Live" mode, it would just crash to the desktop anyway. It didn't matter what I was doing in-game... it frequently happened when I tried to rotate the viewpoint, but it also happened just as often if I wasn't even touching the controls.

First, I tried updating the graphics drivers for my system, but that didn't help. Then I installed the patch... and it crashed even faster after loading into Live mode! As in, I could barely get even a minute's worth of play time in Live mode.

I made sure no other background tasks were running, and temporarily disabled my antivirus and firewall before launching the game, no dice. I cut back the graphics settings in the game to the bare minimums, too. But nothing I tried helped. It probably didn't help matters that my system had almost no free memory left with the game loaded and running.

I was resigned to simply having to hope for a better patch to be released...

But then, I decided to do something I'd been meaning to do for a while: replace the antivirus and firewall software on my laptop with different ones. I had been using Symantec Client Security for both AV and FW duties, but uninstalled them and replaced them with Comodo Personal Firewall and Avira AntiVir Personal Edition. (I chose these as they are reputedly light on system resources, unlike the Symantec bloatware they were replacing.)

After the switch was made, I ran The Sims 3 again... and found that it was now stable! At the very least, it no longer crashes to desktop in windowed mode (I've yet to tempt fate by running fullscreen though). And I don't have to disable Comodo or Avira while the game is running. I even have some physical memory left over. I've played the game for hours in this state, no crashes yet.

Now, remember, previously I had been using Symantec Client Security, which is basically a corporate version of Norton Internet Security circa 2006. And while its antivirus and firewall claim to have the ability to be temporarily disabled (through menu options when right-clicking their system tray icons), I think they were still interacting with the rest of the system enough to interfere with The Sims 3. But it appears that the Comodo and Avira play much nicer with the game.

So, anyone having routine crash-to-desktop issues with the game should take a long, hard look at their antivirus and firewall software, along with anything else that runs in the background. And if you post to the forum, be sure to mention which, if any, security software you happen to be using, it may help track down the root cause.

AimHere

i too am thinking its my norton that crashes the game to the desk top without any warning and if i am in the middle of a save my game is gone and i have it install the back up file lossing hours of game to boot. i bought this new system and had a new visio card put in just to play this game so its anoying every time it crashes

I think I love you. FINALLY I CAN PLAY SIMS 3!!!!

I don't know how you figured this out, but I tried what you said (I didn't install Comodo yet but I got rid of Symantec) and the game is running and has not crashed to desktop yet. Normally I would crash out every 3-5 minutes. I've tried to force the game to crash by zooming in and around town and roatating the camera and it's still running fine and dandy!

THANK YOU

I figured this out yesterday also. My issue was SAV10. After three weeks of trying every trick I could think of, I finally tried uninstalling SAV10. Bingo, now the Sim 3 works perfectly.

Oddly enough, only my laptop was having the problem with Symantec. I still have the Symantec products on my desktop PC, and it seems to run The Sims 3 just fine.

I'm thinking Symantec products only cause a problem on a system with limited resources (i.e. RAM). My desktop PC has 2GB of RAM, with plenty left over after launching TS3, while my laptop only has 1GB which was pretty much all used up with the game running.

How much memory do you guys have?

Aimhere

AimHere wrote:Oddly enough, only my laptop was having the problem with Symantec. I still have the Symantec products on my desktop PC, and it seems to run The Sims 3 just fine.

I'm thinking Symantec products only cause a problem on a system with limited resources (i.e. RAM). My desktop PC has 2GB of RAM, with plenty left over after launching TS3, while my laptop only has 1GB which was pretty much all used up with the game running.

How much memory do you guys have?

Aimhere

I don't think RAM was the problem for me because I have 4GB of RAM.

My problem is back. I installed AVG anti-virus and I am crashing out to the desktop again. No warning - game just closes.

*sigh*

My game worked perfectly for a few weeks or so but then when i moved my sims into a bigger house, the game crashed every time i zoomed in or rotated the camera around the bathroom area. (on other families when i first got the game they lived in a huge house and everything was fine and dandy). So i thought maybe it was just this one house that was glitchy but when i moved the family to other houses, larger and smaller, the same problem kept occuring, strangley always around the bathroom area :S

After reading the first post on here i had changed from mcafee to AVG but the problem still happend so i tried comodo and avira- nothing changed. After searching the internet all night tonight iv found two solutions that have helped other people in similar situations and my self:

This one is about turning off data execution prevention- ONLY for the sims 3, KEEP IT ON for everything else!

http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-106643-sims-3-crashing#q=The
+sims+3+crashes+when+i+rotate+and+zoom+in+the+camera&cur=1&url
=%2F

This one seemed to solve the crashing completely. Its a guide to removing mod and custom content and also clearing caches.
http://asilee.com/2009/07/25/the-sims-3-crashing-to-desktop-pos
sible-solutions/

So i've came to the conclusion that my custom content from the store and exchange was the reason for the crashing, but there seems to be quite a number of different reasons for different people :/

I know this thread is old but i hope this helps anyone else having this frustrating situation